Tijuana to videotape tourists for safety

TIJUANA – To crack down on crime and police corruption, the city is installing surveillance cameras in the busy tourist district.

"Anyone who comes for healthy diversion on Avenida Revolución can feel safe because we'll be making sure that nothing happens," said Martín Domínguez Rocha, Tijuana's secretary of public safety.

The cameras initially will be set up at 15 locations along Avenida Revolución and around commonly used pedestrian pathways to the border, including bridges and the Viva Tijuana shopping area near the San Ysidro crossing.

"If we can scare the social predators in the zone, that will be a step forward," Domínguez said.

The cameras will be monitored around the clock, alerting authorities to activities such as drug deals, drunken fights and robberies at automated teller machines. The videos "can also monitor the work of our police, to make sure that they don't commit any irregularities," Domínguez said.

U.S. visitors increasingly have stepped forward in recent months to complain of mistreatment by Tijuana police – from extortion to rape.

Other cities in Mexico, including Mexico City and Monterrey, have installed video cameras in certain areas. Tijuana also has installed them at the crossroads east of downtown known as La Cinco y Diez. These are the first video cameras along Avenida Revolución.

The installation should be complete within two months. The cameras will be monitored from a special section in the city's police communications center.

"This will help us mitigate not only the problems that tourists face, but also the problems that tourists cause," said Jesús Manuel Sandez, president of Tijuana's Business Coordinating Council. The coalition of business groups is financing the project through a special fund generated by payroll taxes.

While most tourists are law-abiding, "we also receive tourists that are not precisely the kind that a city wants," he said.

Eventually, the program will be expanded to include 85 cameras in Tijuana's downtown, Sandez said. The council also plans to install emergency telephones on Avenida Revolución to help tourists report crimes immediately.

Merchants who serve the tourist market say they are happy with the cameras. "This could be an efficient tool, if used correctly," said Andrés Méndez, owner of the Monte Alban Curio Shop and president of the Mexican Business and Tourism Committee.

Méndez and others say the key to the success of the program is making sure that the cameras are monitored closely and that no one is allowed to interfere with them.

David Solís, president of Tijuana's Citizens Commission for Public Safety, said his group, Graffiti Busters, first suggested using video cameras in 1995 to monitor the area the way cameras are used to monitor U.S. shopping malls.

He said surveillance cameras "can be much more efficient than posting a squad of federal police to patrol a street corner."